BARRIERS FACED BY PARTIES TO A PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP (PPP) IN THE PRE-AGREEMENT PHASE

Several infrastructure developments worldwide have been completed by public private partnerships (PPPs) with diverse results. PPP projects enco unter a variety of barriers in the pre-agreement phase that may be serious enough for the cancellation of the project. This paper uses the literature to identify the most common PPP barriers, These barri ers are classified into six categories: (1) legal baniers (2) political baniers (3) social barriers (4) financial baniers (5) economic baniers (6) coordination barriers. The extent of the impact of these barriers was obtained by conducting a structured questionnaire survey that was administered to public owners in India and private consortia. The relative significance of the criteria within each barrier was statistically analyzed for internal consistency and reliability. The differences were evaluated by using the Mann Whitney U test between public owners and private consortia. The findings indicate that public owners and private consortia agree on the impact of all six aggregate barriers to PPP. Social barriers have the least impact, while financi al barriers have the highest impact on PPPs. Public owners and private consortia had statistic ally different views in only five of the 41 barriers considered in this study. Keywords. Public Private Partnership (PPP ), Public owners, Private consortia, Preagreement phase, Legal barriers , Political barriers, Social baniers, Financial barriers, Economic barriers, Coordination barriers , Aggregate PPP barrie rs, Questionnaire survey, Statistical analysis, Mann-Whitney U tests.M.S. in Civil Engineering, July 201